She cursed again and ran across the patio until she was in the grass, running through the garden which was three shades darker than it had been when she came making it difficult to find her way. What made it even more difficult was the garden itself as rows of old black magic irises popped up guiding her off of the path and into the heart of the garden.
By the time she realized her folly, a dark green vine of english ivy wrapped around her ankle, the tickle of it pulling her attention to the ground but before she could extract herself it tugged harshly, pulling her feet from under her and taking her to the ground in a hard crash.
"Fucking hell!" She held a hand to the back of her head where it landed against a hard root and then she ripped the ivy, hearing the crack of the vine with a satisfied smirk. She lifted her hands and uttered a few choice words, causing the natural world around her to pause and shudder as she pulled into her veins a dark power of which this world was never supposed to play with. She felt it fill her and the cruel smile of her lips wasobscene as anything within touch started wilting, curling in on itself, and falling dead. The black irises burned from the inside of their stems, fire bursting out and incinerating them until they were nothing.
She laughed but the mirth was short-lived when two strands of star jasmine grabbed her ankles and as she bent to rip them off something coiled around her arm catching the movement and then there was a thin black rope that snaked around her waist. When she reached for it with her free hand she was jerked forward as a thick and spiced vanilla smell poofed into the air in an offering as the star jasmine released her to the black willow tree. It had matured greatly in size since the night it sprang up.
What she had sent to be a dark warning to Eloise betrayed her by wrapping three and then six of its whip-strong branches around her pulling her up and into its canopy, wrapped tightly like a garden mummy.
When she opened her mouth to yell, a strand of the willow tree lifted a plump peach and shoved it into her mouth gurgling her curse.
And there was where the officers found Cassidy Parker, cradled in the heart of a strangely black, but very alive, willow tree, tressed-up and mute, a peach in her mouth like a roasting pig. Seven smiling souls watched as the uniformed men got her down and one soul grabbed the hand of the tallest officer to cajole him back into the kitchen where the girl and raccoon lay lifeless. At Violet's touch, the officer looked down at his hand, then up to stare directly into her face. She smiled in surprise and pulled.
28. Timelines and Videos
Hot, weak tea was given to Cassidy Parker as she sat, making herself as small and victimized as possible after she had spent the last two hours spinning a tale of being kidnapped by the women of The Lost Souls House who believed themselves to be witches, and when the officers had found her, she'd been escaping into the woods.
The officer, an idiot man, fell for her wide eyes, which she knew when shining just right with the perfect layer of unshed tears would look innocent and make her already beautiful face more alluring. It didn't hurt that she was wearing a white eyelet dress with thin straps and pulled down just the slightest gave a perfect view of her cleavage.
She could trick them enough, give them enough easter eggs of information to keep them looking around, turning to try and catch their tails until she could escape.
The dead girl was harder to explain. She told them she had to suffocate her in self defense.
They'd believed her. For now.
The window in the room showed the hallway passing the desks of the precinct and cops in their navy uniforms walked by every couple of minutes. She made sure she didn't look nervous, but shell shocked. When her fingers started tapping together, she told them to stop.
And then someone not in a uniform walked by. Someone she knew and someone she couldn't be linked to. Her dark strawberry blonde hair pulled Cassidy's attention and body out of her fake shell shocked state and she halfway stood at the surprise, at the sudden streak of fear that shot through her but then stopped and sat telling herself to calm down. Breathe.
She needed to get through this, then when they took her to get medical attention she would run.
The door opened and the tall police officer walked in. He was handsome. In a rugged, almost too angular way. But he had been kind to her and she could tell he liked what he saw when he looked at her. She could use that. Shame she needed to make a run for it or he'd be the kind of man she would love to have hanging around her. On top of her. Any position really. The man looked like he knew how to throw a girl around the bedroom.
Maybe if she got the evidence planted, the dumb witch twins got arrested and she got her house back without anything linking her to the murder...
Murders. Now there was more than one because of that bitch of a teenager.
But then there was the sticky detail of Isla. Why was she here?
"Officer," she started.
He didn't look at her as he took a seat reading papers tucked into a folder and answered, "Chief."
Chief? Warning bells started going off.
"Oh. Um, thank you for being so kind. I was," she pushed out a tear and a shiver went through her body. "I thought I was going to die."
He did look up then, from the file in his hand that he laid flat with his phone on top and his eyes connected with hers. "Did you think you were going to die when you plotted Bentley Goran's death?"
She tried not to freeze and instead look confused.
He pulled up something on his phone and then pushed it toward her where she watched herself from moments ago see someone pass the window and her entire demeanor change as she lifted herself halfway out of the seat.
She didn't react now. She held herself perfectly still. He then pushed the file and spread out three pictures in front of her.
Pictures of her with Isla Tierney. His large hand pushed pages across the table and more still frames of them together were slowly pushed across the table. There was that night at The Dancing Snail when she'd hexed Eloise using Isla as the hex mule. The same night she'd seen Bentley stalking Eloise in the darkened corners of the club and she'd realized she needed to get rid of the oaf. He had been an idiot. All brawn, no brain. "Isla," she said still holding a confused look on her face. "I met her at a bar and we've hung out a few times," she explained.
He nodded, his face blank. She could usually read people but the man was an expert at not showing his cards. He showed one more picture of just her on his phone. "That was tonight. When you were supposedly kidnapped." He pulled his phone back and switched the screen and she watched a recording of her sipping from a cocktail glass. She'd gone to the bar tonight before going to the house. She realized her folly with a sinking feeling.
